FBR Orders Customs to Destroy All Blacklisted Phones

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), on Thursday, directed Collectors of Customs to destroy all mobile phones which are not certified/whitelisted by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) as these cannot be auctioned in any case.

The FBR has issued Customs General Order 7 of 2018 to destroy the mobile phones which are not whitelisted in Device Identification Registration Blocking System (DIRBS).

According to the instructions issued by the FBR to the Model Customs Collectorates (MCCs), the field formations shall examine the confiscated/seized mobile devices (new/used) ripe for disposal to compile the information in the format prescribed below:

The aforesaid information both in hard/soft copy shall be forwarded to the Director (Type Approval) Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Headquarters, F-5, Islamabad for technical evaluation/certification and their white-listing in Device Identification Registration Blocking System (DIRBS).

The soft copy shall be composed in the form of Excel Sheet with each row containing one IMEI only and will be emailed at [email protected] through official email IDs of the field formations;

The PTA will then certify to mobile devices that are white-listed in the DIRBS. Thereafter, the field formations shall dispose the mobile devices through open auction following the prescribed procedure.

The mobile devices which are not certified/whitelisted by PTA shall be processed for disposal through destruction in the manner approved by the Collector/Director in accordance with the regulatory requirements notified under any other law in force, as per FBR.